Former aide says Tony Blair was pressured by Murdoch not to delay Iraq invasion

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch allegedly telephoned then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair on March 11, 2003 — eight days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq — and urged him not to do anything that could delay the start of the conflict.

The allegation appears in the diaries of Blair’s former communications director, Alastair Campbell, excerpts of which have been appearing in The Guardian.

As summarized by the Associated Press, Blair told Campbell that he “felt the Murdoch call was odd, not very clever.” Both men suspected that the call “was prompted by Washington, and another example of their over-crude diplomacy.”

Blair recently admitted in testimony before Britain’s media ethics inquiry that Murdoch had phoned him three times during the run-up to the war. Murdoch himself claimed during the inquiry that he’d “never asked a prime minister for anything.”

According to the latest revelations, however, Murdoch wanted to let Blair know that his News International would support Britain if it backed the U.S. war. “Murdoch was pushing all the Republican buttons, how the longer we waited the harder it got,” Campbell wrote.

About the Author

Muriel Kane is an associate editor at Raw Story. She joined Raw Story as a researcher in 2005, with a particular focus on the Jack Abramoff affair and other Bush administration scandals. She worked extensively with former investigative news managing editor Larisa Alexandrovna, with whom she has co-written numerous articles in addition to her own work. Prior to her association with Raw Story, she spent many years as an independent researcher and writer with a particular focus on history, literature, and contemporary social and political attitudes. Follow her on Twitter at @Muriel_Kane